Civ VI for iPad only one small step away from Rise and Fall

iPad, PC/Mac/Linux •

It’s always nice to wake up to a surprise unless said surprise involves wet sheets and a horse head. Today’s non-horse-head-based surprise comes from our Discord channel, where Athros discovered that Aspyr Media is at it again in regards to Civilization VI for iPad. Yep, a new update has landed and it’s a doozy.

This update includes two of the major seasonal updates from the Steam version, both the Summer and Fall 2017 updates. What the hell does that mean? A lot.

First of all, the Summer 2017 update includes the Nubia civilization featuring Queen Amanitore as well as a Nubian scenario pack. Ho-hum, another civ, I can hear you thinking. It’s a bit more than that.

Nubia

• Civ Unique Ability: +50% Production toward Ranged units. All Ranged units earn promotions 50% faster. Mines over strategic resources are +1 Production. Mines over bonus and luxury resources are +2 Gold.
• Queen Amanitore Unique Ability: Kandake of Meroë – +20% Production on all districts rising to +40% if the city contains a Nubian Pyramid adjacent to the City Center.
• Pitati Archer: Replaces the Archer. Stronger than the Archer with +1 Movement.
• Nubian Pyramid: Improvement. +1 Faith. Receives additional yields from adjacent districts. +1 Food if adjacent to a city center. For all other districts that award adjacency bonuses: +1 of the appropriate yield if that district is adjacent. Desert, Desert Hills, Floodplains.
• Jebel Barkal Wonder
• Unlocked at Iron Working. Awards 2 free Iron and +4 Faith to Cities within 6 tiles.
• ‘Gifts of the Nile’ Scenario
  • The Nile River is the life-blood of not one ancient civilization, but two: Egypt and Nubia. Although these neighbors and trade partners shared a common river valley and supreme deity (Amun) they were often in direct competition if not outright war. In this head-to-head competitive scenario, you will take the role of one of these powers to see who can truly become the most worthy disciple of the great god Amun by being the first player to create 7 Temples in his honor.
• Added Restart button to regenerate the map
• Added the saving of game setup configurations to reuse when starting future games

[GENERAL BALANCE CHANGES]

• Reduced the cost of the Aqueduct by 30%, and Sewers by 50%
• Reduced cost of all other districts by 10%
• Increased the discount for districts you have less of from 25% to 40%
• Increased costs of district buildings by 10% (except Aerodrome buildings), and increased per settler cost bump by 50%
• Reduced cost of all spies by 25%
• The Hanging Gardens now provides +2 Housing in city it is built
• Walls now provide Tourism, and do not have Maintenance
• Battering Ram and Siege Tower now upgrade to the Medic support unit, and no longer are functional against a city with Urban Defenses
• Gave St George an additional Charge
• Updated Monarchy’s Medieval Wall bonus to: “+50% Production toward defensive buildings. +1 Housing for each level of wall.”
• Proselytizer Apostle Promotion only evicts 75% of existing pressure of other religions, not 100%.
• Press Gangs will now unlock with Exploration and Native Conquest with Colonialism.
• Increased Anti-Air strength values by 5 across the board. Increased Destroyer AA strength to match other units of the same era.
• Balance Change to Archer (cost +10) and Maryannu Chariot Archer (cost -20, combat +2, ranged strength +2)
• Increased cost to repair city outer defenses
• Moved “Urban Defenses” from Civil Engineering to Steel

[CIV & LEADER SPECIFIC BALANCE CHANGES]

• Norway
  • Thunderbolt of the North gains +50% production of naval melee units
    Stave Church gains +1 Production for all Coastal resources in the city
• Spain
  • Treasure Fleet civ ability has its gold for intercontinental trade boosted from +4 to +6.
  • Mission: increase from +1 Science to +2 Science if next to a Campus.
• Scythia
  • Heal down from 50 to 30.
• Kongo
  • 50% more Great People points rather than double.
• Greece
  • Award an envoy whenever they complete an Acropolis.
• France
  • Catherine’s Flying Squadron now awards a free Spy when the extra capacity is earned at Castles. All spies start as Agents with a free promotion.

[MAP GENERATION]

• Aluminum may now appear on Plains
• Increased Lake generation
• Updated Bonus and Strategic Sea resource generation
• Fixed river generation on Inland Sea maps

[UI ENHANCEMENTS]

• Combat Preview UI has received multiple improvements
• The Civilopedia now shows the number of spies/envoys granted by a civic
• Multi-turn unit movement paths shown when unit reselected
• Add Relationships tab to city state Intel Reports which displays that city state’s at war status with other civs and city states
• A popup box is now used to modify deal item values
• Added leader dialog for Gifts and Demands
• Scenarios no longer display extraneous UI screens\
• Reports now displays great works, adjacency, and districts information
• Trade Route chooser automatically selects previously completed trade route
• Additional improvements to the Trade Route chooser
• Added a turn blocker notification when city ranged attack is available
• Tech and Civic Boosts now additionally appear in the notification panel above the turn advancer.
• A Toggle Strategic View keybinding has been added

[DIPLOMACY ENHANCEMENTS]

• Added tooltips explaining why you can or cannot declare each kind of war or undertake another diplomatic action.
• “Are you sure you want to denounce?” confirmation added
• Liberation changes:
  • Liberating cities can now occur even if you got the city in a deal (peace deals are the most common case of this).
  • A case where the Persian player didn’t see “(cede)” or “(return)” besides cities on the peace deal screen has been fixed.
  • When you liberate a city-state your military units are only kicked back from the first ring of hexes around the city; you aren’t ejected from their territory entirely.

[AI TUNING]

• Improved AI ability to move great works around to get theming
• AI will now better handle air attacks
  • – Bombers will attack Districts, Improvements, and then Units in that preference
  • Fighters will prefer to attack other air units
• Improved desire to pillage cities
• Improved city planning with regard to adjacency bonuses
• During city attacks, concentrate unit attacks on more threatening units rather than spreading out
• Fixed a bug that resulted in the AI overestimating the value of demand tribute
• Adjust AI acceptance of embassies to be a bit more like what they already do for delegations
• Specifically, they probably will reject it if they’re unfriendly, will accept at neutral unless they have any other reason against it (close balance) and will generally accept it at friendly unless they have a strong reason against.
• In evaluating deals, the AI will mark elements that are unacceptable at any price, and expose that to the player
• Improve ability to utilize city-states, beyond just suzerainty
• As a player approaches victory, AI will become less friendly and more aggressive

And there’s even more than that, but I think you get the idea. The Nubia update is available right now via a $5 IAP.

We also, however, get the Fall 2017 update which includes the Khmer and Indonesian empires.

• KhmerCiv Unique Ability:
  • Grand Barays – Farms provide +2 Food if adjacent to an Aqueduct. +3 Faith and +1 Amenity to each city with an Aqueduct.
• Jayavarman VII Unique Ability:
  • Monasteries of the King – Holy Sites provide +2 Food and +1 Housing if placed on a river. Holy Sites provide a culture bomb.
• Domrey:
  • Unlocks with Military Engineering technology. Unique Medieval era siege unit. Can move and shoot in the same turn and exerts zone of control.
• Prasat:
  • Same yield as Temple. Missionaries purchased in this city receive the Martyr promotion. +1 Relic slot.
• Indonesia Civ Unique Ability:
  • Great Nusantara – Minor Adjacency for Coastal tiles to Holy Site, Campus, Industrial Zone, and Theater Square. +1 Amenity to each Entertainment Complex adjacent to a coastal tile.
• Gitarja Unique Ability:
  • Exalted Goddess of the Three Worlds – Naval units can be purchased with Faith. Religious units pay no movement to embark or disembark. +2 Faith to City Centers that are adjacent to Coast.
• Jong:
  • Replaces Frigate. Unlocks with Mercenaries civic. +1 Movement.  All units in formation inherit movement speed. +5 to combat when in a formation.
• Kampung:
  • Unique improvement placed on Coastal tiles that are adjacent to a sea resource. +1 Housing. +1 Production. +1 Food for each adjacent Fishing Boat. More Housing, Production, and Tourism as you advance through the game.
• Angkor Wat Wonder
  • +1 Population in all Current Cities when built. +1 Housing in all cities. Must be built adjacent to an Aqueduct district.
• Ha Long Bay Natural Wonder
  • Two tile natural wonder that can be found on coastal terrain and provides +3 Food, +1 Production, and +1 Culture. +15 Combat Strength when defending in this tile.
• ‘Path to Nirvana’ Scenario
  • The lands around the Indian Ocean flourish with many religions and many people. Heaven has chosen you to bring the light to all these lands. Is your faith up to the challenge? Can you convince the people of Southeast Asia to follow your religion? In this 50 turn scenario, compete to have the most followers of your religion, the most faith per turn, and the most foreign cities following your religion.

[RELIGION UPDATE]

• Overhauled “Religion Lens”
• All religious units move on their own layer (similar to Trade Units and Spies)
• Switched to unique unit flag backing for religious units
• Display religion (if applicable) for a unit to be purchased with Faith
• Added the ‘Condemn Heretic’ unit action to allow military units to eliminate religious units in their tile, similar to pillaging a trade route
• Added Religion indicators to unit flags
• Religious units now exert Zone of Control and receive Flank and Support bonuses in religious combat
• Added two new Pantheons, two new Founder Beliefs, two new Follower Beliefs, two new Enhancer Beliefs, and two new Worship Beliefs (with new buildings)Follower
• Belief “Warrior Monks” unlocks the new Warrior Monk unit, a medieval land combat unit with its own promotion tree that is purchased with Faith
• Added the Guru religious support unit, which can heal nearby religious units
• Improved long-term usefulness of Missionaries by giving their spread religion ability 10% eviction of all other religions
• Gave nine existing leaders the LOW_RELIGIOUS_PREFERENCE trait so they are unlikely to push hard for a religion, making it easier for players to get one on high difficulties
• Added Unit Action tooltip to show you how many followers you’ll have in a city after you spread religion there
• Adding religious pressure to both ends of a trade route:Destination city gets 1 pressure per turn of the origin city’s majority religion (if it has one). This is the same amount as if that city was close by.
• Origin city gets 0.5 pressure per turn of the destination city’s majority religion (if it has one)
• Added 8 new Relics

[UI ENHANCEMENTS]

• Updated Diplomacy screens to improve readability and usability
• Trade Overview: Available Routes tab will now show all possible routes between two cities regardless if the origin city has a trader located at it
• New medallion style art for Great People
• Capital icons now appear on city banners in espionage chooser menu
• Rest & Repair actions inform you if you can’t heal due to a missing Strategic Resource
• Changed sort order for gossip so most recent messages are shown first
• Ensure plot tooltips show up after mousing over 2D icons in same plot
• Trade route chooser now sorts routes when filtered by a yield
• Lots of changes to make assorted UI screens more moddable/extensible

[AI TUNING]

• Improved AI’s naval gameplay, including protection and healing of naval units, building a proper navy, and assaulting coastal cities
• AI will attempt to re-convert its holy cities
• AI will no longer commit to battles they cannot win
• Improve AI city and district placement
• Improved AI’s valuation of great works
• Improved Scout’s drive to explore Tribal Villages
• Improved siege attacks
• Adjusted religious strategies, preventing large hordes of units going to the same, distant city
• New AI support for Religious Heal and Condemn Heretic actions
• Improve AI use of Inquisitors
• Money Grubber agenda is no longer as sensitive to fluctuations in income

And so on, and so on. The Khmer and Indonesia update can be yours for $9 via IAP.

What’s really cool about this massive content dump is that it brings the iPad version only one step behind the addition of the Rise and Fall expansion and catching up to its big brother. Rise and Fall was released in February of 2018 along with an update to the base game, meaning the next time we hear from Aspyr, we could have a fully-functional version of Civ VI on our iPads. Considering that they’ve included some multiplayer hooks here and there in the app, perhaps cross-platform multiplayer (or even iPad-iPad online multiplayer) will be something once all versions are on the same page?

For now, Civ VI on iPad is the best strategic title you can find on the App Store. If you have an iPad that can run it, it’s worth every penny.

• Civilization VI for iPad, free ($30 to download full game)
• Civilization VI for PC/Mac/Linux via Steam, $60

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